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If you are finding yourself in a stressful situation, chances are that many have the tendency to rely on eating unhealthy to get them by. But emotional eating can take a toll on your health when you are doing it consistently on a regular basis.
Eating uncontrollably is not a healthy way of coping with stress which is the reason why it is important that you adhere to healthy eating habits.
For those who have been looking into ways to combat emotional eating, we have sorted out a few for you to take a look into.
What Does Emotional Eating Mean?
In the simplest of explanations, emotional eating is a way to combat the constant emotional turmoil that one could be having. It could be as a response to stress or any kind of breakdown that you could be struggling with.
If you find yourself reaching out for good when you are in distress, such a situation is what we term as emotional eating.
People have time and time reported (R) that food has been a positive recluse for people who tend to struggle emotionally.
Often times when it comes to asking why is it food that helps cope with such distressing situations, it is believed that food effectively helps fill the void that one often tends to struggle with.
Why is Emotional Eating Harmful?
If you are here wondering why emotional eating is harmful, it is mainly because of two factors. One being the fact that people end up eating unhealthy foods when they are emotional and two being the fact that they can even overeat the food when they are under stress.
Often times, emotional eating has also been associated with the risks of eating disorders like binge eating disorder and such which has grave impacts on the overall emotional state of an individual.
If you reach out for food when you are emotionally distressed, chances are that you wouldn’t be able to keep a track of things and end up eating more and more than what is considered normal and healthy.
A consistent habit of emotional eating can lead to complaints associated with the risks of obesity and consistent health issues that many could be struggling with.
Not just that, it also does end up enhancing the overall risks of chronic diseases in an individual, further deteriorating the condition even further.
What Causes Emotional Eating?
It is actually quite tough to pinpoint what could be the actual reason behind the constant emotional eating that you are likely indulging in. That said, it is very important that you find alternative ways to cope with the situation.
When it comes round to the causes and triggers behind the condition, there are quite a few that is worth looking into.
Some of the most popular causes include:
Stress
Any kind of constant pressure on your shoulder can lead to emotional eating. If you are finding yourself in stressful condition, it is likely that the same will end up affecting your overall mental state, which further has direct impacts on your eating habits.
Boredom
Even boredom is a kind of emotion that can lead to uncontrolled overeating. Often times, this is considered one of the most common triggers of emotional eating and majority of the people don’t even realize until it is too late to go back. When one has nothing to do around, the most common thing that they use to fill the void is by eating more.
Fatigue
If you are tired of doing something consistently, people treat that as a trigger to end up overeating because of the condition of emotional eating. If this is something that you have been noticing, it is actually very important that you do focus on getting things aligned accordingly.
How to Deal with Emotional Eating?
When it comes to the condition of emotional eating, there are a number of things to do against it.
Finding suitable and effective treatment options for this condition is a necessity that you didn’t know you needed. There are a number of ways to curb emotional eating. The only thing that you need to do is know about them.
Knowing them helps draw out the unnecessary triggers, thus helping provide effective results in healing your condition faster and more effectively.
Let us take a look at some of the best ways to stop emotional eating.
1. Analyse the situation
Before anything, it is necessary that you analyse the situation. You don’t necessarily have to indulge in looking through every single moment but ensure that you do have some important triggers sorted out. There will be times when you will regret doing things and the same could result in emotional eating.
The best way to combat that is by ensuring that you analyse the kind of situation that you are stuck in. Doing so can effectively help in getting rid of the constant triggers and finding better ways to handle the situation.
Sit down and analyse the pattern of your eating habits and that itself should be more than enough to help you get a look at things in perspective.
2. Be Mindful
When you are trying to look into things to do against emotional eating, mindful eating is one of the best alternatives. The best thing about this is the fact that it helps keep a check on your eating habits along with the amount of food that you likely consume.
If you are faced with a stressful situation, the first thing that you need to do is take a step back. This might not seem like much but can effectively help in getting rid of the habit of emotional eating for good.
People make decisions when they are in constant distress, so when you are in such a situation, don’t act out of nature.
Instead, it is important that you do take your time to calm yourself down first. This might not seem like a lot but has been found to have amazing benefits in helping rechannel your sympathetic nervous system to calm down and make rational decisions.
3. Be Prepared
Not many take this seriously but one of the best ways to curb emotional eating is by ensuring that you are prepared for any kind of situation that is thrown along your way.
The best way to take on challenges like a pro is by ensuring that you do have a plan in action. It might not seem like a lot but the best way to take over the situation is by ensuring that you plan things ahead of time.
When you have a whole weekday coming up, plan your days and tasks in the weekend so it is easier for you to handle things, even if you are subjected under stressful conditions.
4. Talk to a Friend
Often times, we don’t realize this but one of the very best ways of coping with emotional eating is by being open to someone about it. The habit might be unhealthy but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is something wrong with you. This is the reason why it is important that you talk to a friend about it.
Talking helps channel the positive flow of energy and can even allow you to express the things that might have been causing you consistent distress.
Bottling things up ends up making one more stressed about a situation which is why it leads to the overexerting eating that you find yourself doing.
This is the reason why it is very important that you do find better alternatives and talking to a friend is considered a healthy way to manage your stress unlike anything else.
Also, Read: Foods to Increase Stamina and Energy
5. Manage your stress in a healthy way
Stress is a primary issue when it comes to emotional eating. If you have been finding yourself in unlikely situations, it is very important that you find healthy ways to handle your stress.
It could range from walking around in nature to even talking to a therapist about the situation. It all comes down to how well you handle the situations you are in that further help manage the signs.
If you are constantly finding yourself stressed, you need to ask yourself what is causing it.
Chronic stress takes a toll on your body in the long run and is definitely not something that you want to experience in life.
All that aside, finding constructive ways to manage your stress is one of the best ways of handling your condition of emotional eating.
6. Recognize your addictions
When it comes round to emotional eating, people do tend to indulge more in unhealthy eating habits. One of the most important things to keep in mind is to ensure that you focus on recognizing any kind of addictive habits that you are possibly struggling with.
Eating addictions also result in unnecessary emotional eating that you are likely not even aware of.
There have been conducted studies that have pointed out the patterns of addictive eating that could further contribute to issues concerning emotional eating.
They found that people are likely going to eat more when they are subjected to an unstable eating habit. If they are addicted to something around, the same is likely going to have direct impacts on the emotional state of mind as well.
7. Avoid your triggers
If you have a habit of emotional eating, chances are that there are common triggers that you know of. In such situations, it is important that you not just identify them but assure to get rid of such habits as well.
The reason why that is the case is that they contribute to making the situation even worse. This is the reason why it is best that you distance yourself from such situations and find a recluse.
You can also work on your temptations by preventing on stocking up on these kinds of foods. They have been found to have quite a massive impact on the condition of emotional eating which is the reason why it is best that you uproot the causes from the roots.
It is likely for your brain to see unhealthy and easily accessible foods but it is completely up to you on how you handle things. Keep an eye out on that for effective impacts.
8. Try grounding techniques
It is going to be very common for your mind to go into complete haywire but it is you who has to control it.
If you are finding yourself struggling with such issues, try out any of the grounding techniques that you know will work well for the condition.
Grounding techniques are considered quite an effective way to power through a situation that you might be struggling with. They help in bringing your mind back to the present, helping you power through the struggles.
This has been found to further have amazing benefits in helping prevent mindless eating that many indulge in when they are emotionally distraught.
Also, Read: Healthy Foods You Should Not Overeat
9. Get your body moving
If you are finding yourself wanting to eat something unhealthy because of the stressful situation that you are in, one of the best ways to combat that is by ensuring that you get your body moving. This is one of the best ways to blow the steam off, helping prevent the stressful situation that you are in.
Not only does this help in getting the steam off of the situation, but the same has also been found to have beneficial impacts in helping trigger the release of endorphins into the bloodstream as well, which has positive benefits on the body.
Exercising is considered a much healthier option instead of indulging in unnecessary emotional eating that you otherwise would.
10. Opt for meditation
Not many realize this but meditation is considered one of the best ways to calm your racing thoughts and bring peace to your mind.
If you have been struggling to keep your struggles with emotional eating in check, one of the best ways to get rid of that issue is by ensuring that you meditate at least 10 minutes a day.
This has been found to have positive benefits in helping calm your mind and get rid of the unnecessary negative thoughts that have been swirling around in your mind.
Just make sure that you drive out the accessory noise around because that is what helps concentrate your mind a lot better.
If you have been trying to find ways to cope with emotional eating, we would suggest that you looking into the methods that we have mentioned around. All of them have been found effective in helping improve your quality of living and your overall well being for that matter. Emotional eating can take a toll on your health, so make sure that you plan things accordingly.
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